


hacker/hitter/thief/home

by AtlantisRises



Category: Leverage
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mini-Fic, Multi, Post-Canon, Scars, World of Warcraft - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlantisRises/pseuds/AtlantisRises
Summary: Small moments from Parker, Hardison, and Eliot's life together.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison/Parker, Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 24
Kudos: 146





	1. wet earth

**Author's Note:**

> These chapters are all individual short fics; they take place in the same general canon but don't have much to do with each other beyond OT3 fluffiness. Most are the result of prompts I got on tumblr.

There’s no big thing that brings it back; it’s just April, and rainy, and the new herb beds outside of Eliot’s cabin smell deep and wet, and Parker starts shaking.

When they find her she’s perched up on the porch rail, back against the house and knees up tight under her chin, staring at a patch of fresh-turned dirt.

“Parker,” says Eliot, soft.

She doesn’t look at him. Her eyes snap up to Hardison and she reaches out out out until he steps in close, and then she buries her hands in the folds of his pullover and her face in his chest and breathes deep.

“Sweetheart,” he says, warm hands squeezing gently at her shoulders. “Baby.”

“You smell like you,” she says into his chest.

“Yes?” he says. She doesn’t reply right away so he waits. He’s learned to wait, with her. They both have.

Finally she pulls back a bit and leans her forehead against his shoulder. He gives her one hand and she holds it between their bodies, gripping tight and watching the little bloom of white while she says, “you didn’t. When they buried you, when-when you came out of the ground, you didn’t smell like you.”

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t that, and it punches straight through him. He breathes in deep on reflex and oh, _oh_ , the smell is everywhere: earth and rain, thick like grave dirt.

Parker says, _“I almost lost you.”_ She says it like she’s choking.

Hardison would like to say something back, but for the first time in a long time all of his words are stuck inside of him. _Breathe_ , he tells his body. _Breathe_.

He squeezes her hands, her shoulder. Focuses on the warmth there.

There’s a low sound, almost a growl, and then Eliot’s hand is on the back of his neck. That’s warm too, and the tense, hard line of Hardison’s shoulder’s slackens a little bit beneath it. He breathes.

“Nobody’s losing anyone,” says Eliot. “Nobody.”

Parker nods, small and shaky, against Hardison’s shoulder.

“I mean it,” says Eliot. “I swear it.”

“Nobody,” says Hardison. He meets Eliot’s eyes. The look in them is clear, hard, approving.

_Breathe,_ he thinks, and he remembers Eliot’s entire solid weight against him, the arms tight around him, the hand holding firm to the back of his neck. He has never, to this day, forgotten the feeling of wet leather under his hands, and how suddenly and all encompassingly safe it made him feel. He has never forgotten Parker’s voice in his ear, keeping him steady, helping him breathe.

“I’m here, baby,” he tells her, pressing the tangled mess of their hands against his heart. Parker swallows.

“Here,” she says, against his shoulder.

“Here,” says Eliot, with a hand on each of them, holding them steady.

_Here, here, here,_ with the earth wet around them. Here and together. Here and alive.


	2. warcraft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot has the wrong idea about some things.

Eliot can hear Hardison from down the hall.

“-already _did_ the recon,” he’s saying. “If y’all nerds would actually _read_ what I sent you, you’d already know….huh? Nuh uh man, that _did not work_ last time.”

Eliot frowns. It’s not like Hardison isn’t _allowed_ to take on jobs alone, but he doesn’t. None of them do, at least not without telling each other. And Alec tells him everything _anyway_ , whether he wants to hear it or not. 

Eliot shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet and continues slowly down the hall. Loathe as he is to snoop in his own goddamn house, a Hardison with secret plans is…worrying to say the least.

The door to Hardison’s study is cracked, and Eliot settles in with his back to the wall beside it. He can hear more voices now, clear but also clearly coming through speakers. At least Alec hasn’t brought strangers into the house without telling him.

“I’m telling you,” says Hardison on the other side of the door, “we try the Five-and Eight, but we add a Nurse Joy just in case, yeah? We don’t have enough tanks to risk losing one right at the jump.”

A voice on the speakers–male, Eliot notes, light, probably young– says, “still dunno what that is, man.”

A female voice–sharper, older– groans and says, “It’s what we did, like, _just_ last week, only this time we send someone out along the side to rez Mara in case she goes down again.”

“I thought that was a called a Tagalong.”

“Tagalong’s the slingshot thing, man, why don’t you ever _listen_.”

Several other voices pitch in at once, way more people than Eliot would ever let in on a con. What the hell is Hardison _doing_?

“People, people,” says Hardison. 

Some of the voices quiet; the woman from before says sharply, “ _Hey,”_ and the rest peter out.

“Thanks Gina. Ok. Here’s how this is gonna work, yeah? The camp’s only fortified on three sides. There’s just a cliff to the north, so like eight of you are gonna mount up and come over the side. Mara and whoever wants to babysit her are going in under the gate, Gina and I have the south, and Eliot is gonna _stop fucking snooping and get in here already, man, seriously._ ”

Dammit. 

Eliot thumps his head against the wall, turns, and opens the door. 

Spread out across two of Hardison’s three ridiculously huge monitors is some sort of animated map; on the third, a big green _something_ in mismatched armor sways and shuffles in place, holding a comically oversized sword. Hardison has his desk chair tipped allllll the way back, his feet kicked up on the desk, and a shit-eating grin splitting his face from ear to ear. He holds up a fourth screen: the tiny laptop he uses to run the house’s security. Right now it’s showing the camera feeds…including the one for the hallway right outside the door. 

Eliot groans. Hardison cackles.

“You really gonna spy on me in my own house? With the security system _I_ designed?”

“You’re playing video games?”

“I am playing _World of Warcraft_ , man. What did you think was going on?”

“Dammit Hardison! You’re talking like you’re planning a _job,_ I thought you were gonna go do something stupid!”

“He always talks like that,” says the young male voice from before. Hardison makes a face.

He says, “hey, you shut up. Don’t go talking to your big brother that way,” at the same time that everything clicks for Eliot and he hisses, “man, are you teaching con shit to _kids_?”

“Oh fuck off,” says the young woman, Gina, to one or both of them. “Can we get back to this.”

“One minute,” says Hardison. He spins all the way around to face Eliot, feet on the floor and smile impossibly bigger.

Eliot loves that smile, but he doesn’t trust it.

“Eeeeliot,” says Hardison.

“No,” says Eliot.

“You don’t even know what I’m gonna ask!”

“No,” says Eliot, “I will not play your dumb orc game.”

Hardison pouts aggressively, big eyes even bigger. “Come on, man, we need more tanks. You’re already like, the tankiest guy I know. You’d be a natural.”

Eliot does not know what that means, and chooses to take it as a compliment. Still: “No.”

“Fine,” says Hardison, slumping dramatically back in his chair. “Would you at least bring me some lunch?”

Eliot glares. Hardison smiles back with those big, big eyes.

“Dammit, Hardison,” says Eliot. He stomps out of the room and down the hall, and doesn’t miss the big victory grin on Hardison’s face or the exchange that follows him out:

“Who the hell was that?” asks the boy from earlier–one of Hardison’s foster brothers.

“Eh,” says Hardison. “You’ll meet him soon enough. He’s family.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this one was "Hardison plans his guild's raids like he's planning a con" which I thought was hilarious. 
> 
> Full disclosure: I've never played WoW and only ever half paid attention to people trying to explain it to me. I did no additional research for this chapter, which I think is very sexy of me.


	3. catalogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Parker asks about one of Eliot's scars"
> 
> CW: non-graphic discussion of violent hazing

Eliot’s chest is different from Hardison’s chest. Parker likes different: different is fun to map and trace and catalogue. Parker has an extensive, meticulously annotated catalogue of Eliot and Hardison.

The catalogue says: Hardison is long and lean and dark and pretty and his breath smells like orange soda. Eliot is pale and stocky and his torso is thick and his hair smells nice even when he’s sweaty. 

Hardison has long quick fingers and Eliot has broad palms. 

Hardison has smooth skin and Eliot has scars.

She traces a long, pink one and Eliot says, “broken glass.”

“I know,” she says. “I was there when you fell out the window.”

“You’re the reason he fell out the window,” says Hardison, who is buttoning up his jeans. Eliot huffs and it tickles the sweat on Parker’s forehead.

“It was only the second floor.”

“ _Only_ the second floor,” parrots Hardison from somewhere in the body of a green t-shirt. His head pops out and he makes a face at her. “Sure. _Anyway_. I need to go review the warehouse footage.” He makes another face at the two of them still sprawled on the bed.

“Have fun,” says Eliot, and Parker can’t see _his_ face but she can hear his shit-eating grin. She likes knowing someone so well she can hear their smile. She smushes her cheek into his chest so he can feel hers.

Hardison leaves grumbling (Hardison’s grumbling is different from Eliot’s grumbling). He isn’t really angry. Parker will bring him soda later, and he’ll let her sit on his bookshelf and watch him work. 

The bedroom door shuts. Eliot’s collarbone juts into her cheek. She licks it. 

“Hey!” he says, jerking. “Dammit, Parker.” 

“There are three here,” she says

“Where?”

She pokes a cluster of scars— one, two, three— in the spot just below the join of his collarbone and shoulder. They’re identical: round, but not bullet-hole round, and faded. They form a neat little triangle. 

“Cigarettes,” says Eliot.

“You don’t smoke.”

“Nope.”

Parker sits up and looks at him properly. Eliot looks back at her. This, she realizes, is about to become a Conversation.

That’s another difference. Conversations— capital C— with Hardison are intense but warm. Hardison does big emotions better than any of them.

Eliot does this. He offers little bits of himself and lets her prod at them. He trusts her to prod— he’s only ever asked her to stop once.

He’s offering a new piece now. She tries the most obvious angle first: “your dad?”

“Nah,” says Eliot. He pushes his hair off his forehead with one hand and stretches up towards the headboard with the other. 

“Terrorists? Torture?”

“No,” says Eliot. He let’s both hands drop back to the bed and looks at her like he’s waiting to see if she’ll get it. “Basic training.”

Basic training. She runs that past the other things in her catalogue: Eliot Spencer before he was _Eliot Spencer_. Small-town boy. Army recruit. 

“You were seventeen.”

“It’s scary that you remember that.” He shakes his head. “Yeah, it was a stupid thing. Hazing. I was smaller then.”

Hazing.

Parker doesn’t like it. It’s almost a shock how much she _does not like_ it. She’s seen Eliot get _shot._ She’s pushed him off of buildings.

Seventeen years old, though. And an Eliot who isn’t _her_ Eliot yet. An Eliot who’s _small_. 

Cigarette burns.

“Parker?” says Eliot.

“You offered to kill someone for me once. A psychic. He made me cry.”

Eliot snorts and pushes up on his elbows. “Parker this happened eighteen years ago.”

“You still have a scar!”

“I have a lot of scars! And teenage boys do stupid things to each other all the time. It’s a stupid power thing.”

“It’s horrible.”

“Parker, you pushed me off a roof yesterday.”

Parker scrunches her face up. Heat prickles in her throat. “That’s not the same! We’re a team. There was a plan! You _trust_ me. I didn’t _hurt_ you.”

Eliot sighs. “No. No you didn’t. And yes I do. With my life.” 

Quiet, for a moment. Parker swallows down the prickles.

“Did you trust them?”

Eliot lies back down. He looks at the ceiling and rubs the little triangle of scars. “Teenage boys are stupid.”

Parker sniffs. She curls herself over his chest. “You’re still stupid.”

“Thanks, Parker.”

Quiet again.

“Are you mad about the roof?” She runs a hand over his chest, cross-checks her catalogue, looks for new scars.

“I’m not,” he says. He picks up her hand and puts it in his hair. His hair is soft.

“Ok,” she says.”

“Ok.”

Quiet again.

“You know I’d kill a psychic for you too, right?”

A grumble (Eliot’s grumbles are different from Hardison’s grumbles.)

“Parker, go to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *turns around to reveal that the back of my hoodie says "Time for Parker's POV!"*


End file.
